Blake was the son of Bur­dine Blake, Jr., and Ma­ry El­len Mur­ray, and hus­band of Al­ice Ma­ry Horne.

He set­tled near Day­ton, Vir­gin­ia, in the ear­ly 1870s, and worked with the Rue­bush-Kief­fer mu­sic pub­lish­ers there.

In 1889, Blake moved to Ron­ce­verte, West Vir­gin­ia, and part­nered with J. W. Hess in pub­lish­ing the Ron­ce­verte News. Around 1891, he bought Hess’ part of the news­pa­per, and changed the name to the Val­ley Mes­sen­ger and News. In De­cem­ber 1897, Blake formed The West Vir­gin­ia News. He pub­lished both pa­pers un­til 1901, when the Val­ley Mes­senger and News was con­sol­id­at­ed in­to the lat­ter pa­per.